The President. I'm going to impose on
you here this morning before taking your questions -- that there are a number
of major issues being discussed on the Hill today, INF ratification and the
contra aid bill. But I want to take a couple of minutes, if I could, to talk to
you about the trade bill.

America's now in its 64th month
of economic expansion. That's the longest peacetime expansion in the history of
our country, and we're still going strong. Gross national product is up;
exports are up. And we continue to create new jobs -- 15\1/2\ million since the
expansion began. There's no time for protectionism. I could argue that there is
never a time for it, but now is definitely not the time. It's not the time for
mandatory retaliation against our trading partners, and it's not the time to
violate our GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] agreements, and it
certainly is not the time to close our borders to foreign investment while we
are pressing to open other borders to U.S. investors.

We
can pass a trade bill that will improve our current trade laws, protecting
patents and copyrights, and streamlining export controls, and renewing
negotiating authority that makes historic compacts like the Canada free trade agreement
possible. We can have that kind of a trade bill, and I
won't sign one unless we do.

But
now, that's enough of that, and I'm pleased to see you and have you all here.
Frequently throughout these last several years we've gone out and invited
people like yourselves who are outside the White House press corps, or even the
beltway press, to come in here, and it has always been
a pleasure to take your questions.

Federalism

Q.
Mr. President, we often hear local officials complain that your budget
priorities force them to swallow Federal programs they can't afford, so they
reach their taxing limits and cut basic services. Do you take responsibility
for what California counties, for instance,
called their unrelenting fiscal crisis?

The President. Their unrelenting what?

Q.
Fiscal crisis.

The President. Well, the reverse of
all of that is really true. There are some programs that we've cut simply
because we've been able to make administrative improvements. I came here with a
memory fresh in my mind as Governor of California of coming across a government
program to help the needy in which the administrative
overhead was $2 for every dollar delivered to a needy person, and set out to do
something about that. Some programs, we have thought, are not proper for the
Federal Government. But at the same time, one of the things that had been
imposed on local and State government by the Federal Government was the
usurpation of authority and autonomy that belonged at the local and State
level.

And
the Federal Government actually had acquiescence, in that over a great many
years, by simply taking up so much of the taxing potential that not enough was
left for local or State government for the things that they might want to do.
And this then was the excuse for the Federal Government to step in with things
that, as I say, properly belonged at that other level. Well, now, with our very
beginning of our recovery program, it was based on tax reductions and the idea
of thus reopening sources of taxation that other elements of government or
levels of government could call upon.

Q.
Are they in trouble then just because they haven't been willing to raise taxes
to take advantage of that?

The President. I would have to see the
specific case as to what that was about, but I'd like to call to your attention
that the Federal -- or the State and local governments basically have, while
we've been running budget deficits, have basically been achieving surpluses. As
a matter of fact, if you take the total national deficit and add in local and
State government -- the total cost of all government in the United States --
you would find that the deficit is not as -- well, it isn't -- there are other
countries that have greater deficits than we do if you figure all of that. It's
at the Federal level that we're still excessively spending.

And
I could call attention to the fact that way back in 1932 Franklin Delano
Roosevelt ran for office, and part of his platform was to restore authority and
autonomy to States and local governments that had been unjustly seized by the
Federal Government. And we have a program we call federalism in which we're
trying to restore fully that concept that the United States is a federation of
sovereign States.

Q.
Thank you.

Death
of U.S. Marines in Lebanon

Q.
Mr. President, if you could change one major policy decision that you've made
during your administration, what do you think it would be?

The President.My
goodness. [Laughter] Well, all of them were made in good faith.
[Laughter] Changed or not -- just offhand, I can't think. Well, I can think of
one that turned out so disastrously that we had to withdraw from it. And that
is that we -- in company of 3 other countries -- 4 countries, in an effort to
try and bring peace in the Middle East and to Lebanon -- that when we
discovered that the Lebanese military forces -- well, Lebanon itself was
occupied by military groups that belonged to kind of private warlords, you
might almost say, and that the military of Lebanon could not go out and restore
government control over the country unless there was some protection for the
people left behind in Beirut. And we, in company with three of our allies,
decided that we would send in, as you know, forces to maintain order. We would
not be out there fighting those private armies, but our forces would be there
to keep order in the city where there was no order, keep order there while the
Lebanese military did what -- or the -- yes, Lebanese military did what it was
supposed to do.

Well,
the funny thing is that was working. I got a letter from a woman there who told
me that for the first time in 8 years she was able to allow her daughter to go
to school, that it was safe once more. But because it was successful, that's
when the terrorist attacks began and the sniping of the military -- not only of
ours but the others, our allies -- car bombings and so forth. And finally, that
great disaster, that car bomb that brought down the building at the airport in Lebanon and killed 241
Americans.

It
can be questioned as to the wisdom of putting them in there. They had not been
billeted in that building, but it was steel and concrete construction. And out
where they were, encamped around the airport, which was part of our duties,
there were victims of sniping, things of that kind. And the commanding
officers, having that kind of structure available, moved these men in there as
a place for the nights, not thinking about a suicide bombing that simply drove
a truck into the building with the explosives that blew them up. And then we
had to retreat. And another reason we had to retreat and give up was it began
to be more evident, also, that the Lebanese military was divided in its
loyalties and were loyal to some of these, what I called warlords, to the
extent that it was difficult to get them in many instances to take action
against the forces they were supposed to be clearing out.

Oliver
North

Q.
Mr. President, last week you said you still think Oliver North is a hero,
despite his indictment on conspiracy, theft, and fraud charges. If requested,
will you testify on his behalf? And can you tell us why you still consider him
to be a hero?

The President. Yes, I will tell you
that. I don't know what his situation will be with regard to giving testimony
or not. But I think I was too short in my remark when I answered the question.
It was a specific question: Did I still consider him a hero? I should have
augmented that and said why, and that is look at the record and at the honors
and the medals that have been awarded him for bravery in combat. And I have to
say those were heroic actions and he is a valid hero. And that was what my
answer was based on, although, as I said, I should have augmented it as I did
here and reminded them of his war record.

Q.
Well, do you think the allegations of shredding documents and lying to
Congressional and Justice Department investigators tarnished that heroism?

The President. You have said
allegations, and now you come down to what is a kind of a sore point with me
about a lot of the things that have been going on with regard to people in our
administration. And that is that someplace along the line many of us have
forgotten that you are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
And what has happened, I think, in the case of this kind is it's just everyone
is accepting guilt on the basis of accusation. And I say they've got a right to
be presumed innocent until someone proves them guilty of the charges.

Now,
I see that I'm getting a signal here. He isn't just restless. [Laughter] It
means that my time is up, and that I'm supposed to leave here. But I'm going to
turn this over to my Chief of Staff, Senator Howard Baker, and he'll continue
to take your questions. And I'm sorry that I have to quit. I've been enjoying
this. As a matter of fact, I want to tell you just something before I go. I
enjoy taking your questions more than I do from the White House press corps.
[Laughter]

Note: The interview
began at 11:23
a.m. in the Roosevelt Room
at the White House.